chunky munky wrote:
On Aug 16, 2:03 pm, "John Rowland"
wrote:
Paul Weaver wrote:
On 16 Aug, 01:20, "Richard J." wrote:
There seems to have been a major failure of the Connect radio
system this evening (15 Aug), leading to the suspension of the
entire District and Circle Lines, plus the H&C west of Baker
Street and east of Whitechapel, and the Piccadilly between Green
Park and Acton Town.

Is it really necessary to shut down lines entirely if the radio
system goes down? Am I right in assuming that the tunnel telephone
system is still there for emergencies? If so, I would have thought
it possible to run a reduced service like the Piccadilly "special
timetable" at 5-minute intervals.

Even if running in tunnels is considered dangerous (despite it
being regarded as perfectly safe without radios for a century or
so), why can't a limited service be run on the open sections from
Hammersmith or West Kensington to Richmond and Ealing Broadway?

Hmm, how do you turn round a tube at Hammersmith or West Ken without
going into a tunnel?

You kick the passengers out, run non-stop empty to Green Park and
then open the doors and carry on.

You can reverse at Hammersmith Picc only on the east to west via
siding and West Kensington both ways.

You can in fact reverse at Hammersmith west to east also, by departing e/b
from the w/b platform and carrying passengers through the siding on to the
e/b track. I've done it myself during a weekend closure west of Hammersmith.

You cannot carry on empty in a single track tunnel with a defective
radio unless a second person is also with the train operator or the
OPO alarm still transmits.

Were the OPO alarms working after Connect failed yesterday?

The failure was caused by hardware fault at a connect core site.Radio
calls were still being sent to the wrong talk groups (controller) this
afternoon.

So 2 complete lines stopped running because of one hardware fault in the
radio system. I hope someone high up in LU is asking searching questions
about resilience.

Trains in the open sections did continue in passenger service (at the
east end of the District) if Airwave radios are available. There are
only a limited number on the network though.

Does anyone know what the rules are on National Rail OPO trains if the cab
radio fails?

--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)